Thanks for the feedback.
Would be interested to know how you get to the Ā£60/year cost for 16 logins, if youre able to share? Is that the approximate direct cost of 16 API calls four times a day for 1 year, or does it also factor in indirect costs?
If it represents direct costs, I wonder if you might consider a PAYG option where users on the free plan who want to connect more than 2 banks could purchase credit which can be used to cover these direct costs when they sync. Would probably need to also provide option for user-control over sync frequency. It may be that a lot of users may be happy with syncing only once it twice a week, enabling them to stretch their PAYG credit a lot longer than if sync happens every day.
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Itās actually quite simple.
A provider like Plaid, Tink, TrueLayer (you name it) would charge Ā£0.25/mo per connection (if you are good at negotiating).
16 bank logins is Ā£48 a year, which is more expensive than keeping a full bank account open for you at any bank.
I am not even counting 4 updates a day, storage and forced syncs.
This also doesnāt take into account the impact a free user with 16 bank logins has with the rest of the service.
If things are done in layers, like we are doing, we can provide a better service for each tier.
If you also want to look at the Emma prices, our net is 55% of what you see. Unfortunately we have to pay VAT and Apple/Google Tax.
In the case of a Ā£20/yr service, thatās Ā£0.90/mo. This means that even if you put 2 connections in a Ā£20/yr plan, you will make a profit of Ā£0.40 a month - assuming no other features. With 16 bank logins, you are losing Ā£37/yr.
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The Ā£0.25/connection/month is just to maintain a connection with no syncs? Or do you get some syncs with that?
Have you considered a pay as you go option where these direct costs are passed on to users and where the rate at which PAYG credit gets used up scales with number of connections and number of syncs they perform? My guess is that PAYG users would be more selective in how many banks they connect and how often they sync and you may be able to retain more users who just wonāt consider a Ā£10/month subscription.
The cost is to simply maintain / have it. Syncs are not priced / charged.
We see Emma as a super app and we intend to bring in lots of financial products in the subscription. Pay as you go is not part of our plans.
I understand some of you might never see value in Ā£10/mo, but we currently have tens of thousands that do and weāll keep providing a great service for this tier (and the others).
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Thanks for explaining the connection costs. I think what youāre trying is a good idea to sure up your business model as you canāt subsidise free users like myself forever unless you have significant other income streams.
Not that it makes much difference, Iāve deleted half my bank logins to rarely used accounts or crypto so am down to 8 logins which I still want to monitor daily. Still Ā£24/year excluding other costs.
Perhaps the super frugal users here are in the minority so Emma may still see organic growth with a limited free account. The bottom line for me is the app is not a cost I can justify when Iām trying hard to cut back everywhere else.
Hi Edoardo. Iām a US user, and I switched from Mint / YNAB to Emma for the simple and no fuss auto categorization + budgeting that the product offers. At the $100/yr price point, youāre competing with offerings such as YNAB, making it very difficult to justify upgrading. Similar services such as BudgetBakers charges $31/yr for unlimited accounts, while Copilot Money (also using Plaid) charges $69.99/yr.
I understand how expensive Plaidās Transactions API is, so Iām not claiming to know the solution. But the market positioning and pricing seems to be a bit out of whack. I love using the platform and would gladly pay for that privilege. But Iām having a really difficult time to justify paying that much as opposed to just switching back to YNAB. Just hoping your amazing team can provide a better solution that still retain the serviceās accessibility to those who are attempting to establish healthy spending habits.
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Hey - maybe wrong place to ask but has anyone recently used any other apps on the market that aggregate and categorise spend to a decent level? I saw in this thread that Yolt which I used to use went under.
Iāve been a Emma user for many years and have trialled Pro but the extra spend just isnāt worth it for one extra login in my case (I need only 3 logins total that get week to week use, Monzo Bank, Halifax CC and Amex CC) - when I use Emma to try cut subscriptions down 
I can see that lots of other people get great value from the upgrade plans just not me at this moment in time.
Any maybe Iād come back after trying other free tracking/budgeting solutions on the market!
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I am also struggling to see the benefit of using the app after this change. Iāve not used Emma for about a year now because of the Chase integration (which I know was not the companyās fault and is coming soon which is great news). I also have a situation where I need to automatically exclude a lot of transactions as one of my cards is shared which I donāt think thereās a solution to? (Unless Iām wrong?) 2 bank accounts is way to few, even 4. I understand that you need to make money somewhere but I use the app quite āsimplyā so to pay Ā£60-Ā£120 a year to see how much Iām spending is just not worth it for me.
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Hey @AmPenguin, thanks for the feedback.
Yes, in the US companies have already started charging for services like Emma and itās way easier to understand than for UK counterparts (this stuff is not free).
I think the current pricing structure is perfectly aligned with the US counterparts (Mint, Copilot, YNAB, RocketMoney, and so on). What we really want to keep is a free version for everyone, so we are pricing our Pro plan a bit higher than Copilot.
You can upgrade to Emma Ultimate, split the cost with who you share the card, and put it in a Space.
Thanks will have a look
Wow, 25p for a banking connection! How is open banking even sustainable for all the fintech apps? Now that any decent bank allows you connecting external accounts. Like I connect 5 accounts to Curve (rip) and thatās them paying 1.25 a month for nothing. That explains a lot.
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Just hoping your amazing team can provide a better solution that still retain the serviceās accessibility to those who are attempting to establish healthy spending habits.
+1. Thanks for providing a lot of value over the years. In the app, can we export/download the data in csv or any other format? @edoardomoreni
Yes, you can take the offer we have put in the app to manage the transition (Ā£4.99/mo) and do as many exports as you like with Emma Pro.
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What about separating out extra logins into annual boltons, a bit like extra storage with email providers. So Pro would have 5 logins with the sub, then you could add as many additional as you want or need separately.
I have 22 logins at the moment, which I think is costing you Ā£66 a year. And Iām only paying Ā£14.99 a year at the moment for Pro. And you are only seeing probs Ā£8.25 of that, so Iām burning Ā£55.75 a year of your funding, just on connections.
It sounds like youāre going to have to limit Pro at some point, or move users on legacy subs.
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I think the current model works fine and we have full confidence we can execute it. Like in every business, not everyone adds 22 bank logins, so it averages out okay. 
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So it costs the same per connection for 1 sync per day as it does for 4 syncs per day?
If so, thatās a shame. I was wondering if you would get more upgrades from Free to Plus if you were able to allow more connections in a cost effective way by running fewer daily auto syncs.
Personally, I really donāt need 4 syncs per day. I only open the app a few times per week so I only need one automated sync per day (for the notifications to be timely) and perhaps the option to perform a limited number of manual syncs each week - perhaps 2 or 3. But if your costs are driven by number of connections rather than number of syncs (which is what I have understand from your responses above) I can understand that its not feasible to do what I suggest.
One other question (just out of interest) - I remember in the past you used to say that you connect directly to at least some bank APIs (rather than use intermediaries like Truelayer). If I remember correctly this was because you felt it enabled you to provide better or more stable connections. Are you now using intermediaries for all connections?
We use a mix depending on regions/opportunities.
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Thats a shame ā¦ as an invester I was hoping that Emma would be the perfect app for me. This change was the straw that broke the camels back, so Iāve just deleted my account and moved elsewhere.
Main reasons are -
- Minimal pension integrations ( one ? )
- No web version for large viewing
- No API ( eg to push manual balances )
- Too expensive ( compared to competition )
Oh well ā¦ good luck in the future.